Who Made Thee?

No. 44 - 23rd July 2017

Last Sunday, I was talking to a little boy about God. And when I said that God made us, he wanted to know if God had made the chair he was sitting on. I said “No. But he did make the wood”. Then I saw his eyes settling on the mobile phone in my pocket. “Did God make your phone?” “No” I said, “He made the people who made the phone”. I could almost see his mind ticking over as he tried to imagine God making people out of plasticine. I must say, it really challenged me to think about what I was saying and how I said it. I mean, when I say God made us, what do I really mean by that? Did God shape a little body and put it in my mother’s womb? I don’t think so. There’s a natural process that takes place with human beings and animals alike. So where does God fit into it?

I have no problem with the concept of evolution. But what I really object to is the notion that it all happened by accident. That given enough time, life was inevitably going to appear somewhere, and gradually become more and more complex and sophisticated, until finally we human beings appeared. I’m afraid that stretches my imagination far more than the idea of a Creator God who set the process going. One who steered and sustained its development and finally introduced that enigmatic thing called ‘life’.

Last Tuesday, my wife and I went to the Uckfield Picture House to watch the Live Broadcast of La Traviata, from the Opera House in Rome. It’s almost impossible to say how moved we were by that performance. The level of artistic power and beauty was overwhelming. And that’s before you even start to think about the minds that created the music, and conceived that whole performance. I refuse to accept the notion that it’s all the meaningless product of a chemical reaction, and nothing more. We human beings are far, far more than that. The Apostle John once described Jesus as having been there before time began. That ‘In Him all things were made, and without him was not anything made that was made’. Finally he wrote, that ‘In Him, was life.’ That’s where it all started. All our creativity, all our scientific achievement, the very ability to understand and appreciate these wonderful thing, come straight from the heart of God. So, what I really want to say is, let’s not have any more of this meaningless, accidental universe. Let’s appreciate it for what it really is. God’s astonishing Creation.